Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I’m tired of following my dreams. I’m gonna ask them where they’re going and catch up with them when they get there. - Mitch Hedberg

At the age of six, I was asked to leave an etiquette class because I refused to stop shoveling cookies into my mouth. My budding logic determined that since I didn’t know when I would next have the chance to eat cookies, I should eat as many as humanly possible before the tray was taken away and something less appetizing put in its place.

So while the other little girls sat in their starched dresses primly holding plates with one cookie neatly situated in the center, I shoved one cookie after another into my mouth. The instructor, initially dumbfounded, quickly regained her senses, grabbed my arm and deftly threw me out of the class. My mother found me sitting outside a closed door picking at the scabs on my knees with chocolate covered fingers.

Twenty-two years later, I still have difficulty restraining myself when trays of cookies are presented to me. Mostly because that while I believe in love and sharing and all of that, one must draw the line somewhere. I draw it at sharing cookies. Beyond this however, I am reluctant to relinquish even the smallest of pleasures out of the simple fear that because change is inevitable, my joy can be swept away at a moment’s notice. So I hoard it, shoveling it into my mouth without really tasting it because I am afraid there is a finite amount.